Tag Archives: Saint Louis

One of my favorite things is making a little change about yourself, and ending up getting way more out of it than you planned. For the last several months I’ve been trying to make an effort to be more outgoing. That probably seems a little crazy to some people, as I am already pretty outgoing. But in many ways I’m still shy and nervous around new people. Thus, I’ve been working on just approaching people and saying hello, striking up conversations or whatever. My Dad is like an expert at this, and I’ve always admired (slash been totally embarrassed) by his ability to do so.

Back in November I went to a show at The Wedge, a venue I sort of love to make fun of. I mean, it used to be much rougher around the edges (*pun*, it was called The Winning Edge). Anyway, I went with Dan to watch his friends in Everyday Adventures play. We, of course, stayed to see the headlining band from Saint Louis play.

For me, going to shows is often more of a social event and a way to support my local community. While I am a huge supporter of local music, it’s typically just not the kind of music that I listen to on my own time. Well, that was so not the case when it came to Welcome Home. These guys started playing there set way back in November and I was hooked. I couldn’t stop telling Dan how awesome I thought they were; the perfect pop punk. Oh, not to mention all these guys are QTz.

After there set I said to Dan, I’m going to go talk to them.. and Dan was all, DO IT! So I took my nervous self over to their merch table and was like, hey.. you guys are really good.. I loved your set.. Whatever other word vomit came out. Well, lucky for me, the guys in Welcome Home are super approachable and friendly. I ended up chatting with Austin (guitar player, beard, babe), and we’ve ended up as long distance friends on all sort of social media channels. See! Make a little change and maybe something great will happen! Conquer your fears, people are mostly really cool and fear just isn’t a good enough excuse to not make new friends.

When I next saw Welcome Home at a basement show, I was telling Austin my plan to move to LA. Come to find out they would be on tour shortly after I arrived. I was thrilled, as I figured I likely wouldn’t have really made any friends by then, so it would be awesome to be see some familiar faces and hear some good music.

At the end of my first full week in LA, I headed out to Programme HQ in Fullerton to catch Welcome Home. As always, I was totally impressed by their music. I got to hear a bunch of new songs, which will be on their new album coming soon! By then they’d been on tour for almost 2 weeks. I got a tour of the van, which had only suffered one flat fire and a slightly broken window from locking the keys inside. My tour also included a glimpse at their creepy mattress they’re all sleeping on, and their impressive Tetris abilities . I had a blast spending a couple hours hanging out with the dudes. I am so looking forward to seeing where the next couple months takes Welcome Home. I just can’t imagine them being anything but a total success and I hope to see them all again very soon!